Wow, got to start thinking about this blog a bit more!

After browsing the Nikonians forums, I thought I might expand on my tripod system, which has evolved a very tiny bit since last time. But first, what goes onto it: my D200 is long gone, and I sold my D300 and all DX lenses in March 2012, which leaves me with a D700 and my array of lenses, plus the occasional shot with the F100, FA or Nikkormat FTn.

What has changed was in October 2009, and that’s the head on the small Gitzo GT1540T legs. I still have the Foba, but it’s in my closet and sits there (and I’d be ready to sell it, should I find a soul to buy it!), because I have replaced it with a Markins Q3T. The head works smoothly, and the combo is sturdy enough that I trust it entirely up to 200mm if normal caution is applied. By this I mean use a remote control, mirror lock-up and weight attached to the tripod.

Here's a shot taken recently with the small legs, and a 28/3.5PC on the D700

The bigger Manfrotto setup is still there, unchanged, and I do use it too, although not nearly as often as I would like, for want of time. My only caveat about it is that I have heard that hydrostatic heads by Manfrotto, such as the one I use, can be subjects to fluid leaks which render them totally inoperable. I have not encountered that, I hope not to in the future.

I first decided that I could certainly live without the A-S system, simply because I couldn’t find one single shop that sold even a generic base plate in that standard. For a country, Switzerland, that gave its national adjective to the system, that seemed pretty poor, but so it is !!!

I thus searched shops and catalogues, online and even, in that technological age of ours, on paper. And I chose to buy an all-Manfrotto system :

• A 055PROB tripod ;
• a MG468RC2 hydrostatic ballhead ;
• a « junior elbow bracket » that I couldn’t find now on Manfrotto’s website – a huge piece of aluminium folded 90 degrees with two RC2 plates, allowing the camera to be mounted vertically.
• I also bought a levelling ball, useful when doing panoramic images. 

My problem started soon : the RC2 plates took a lot of space when mounted to the lenses in the bag, the one on the D200 with the grip hurt my hand, and most of all the « elbow bracket » was so big that it was simply impossible to leave it permanently on the camera. Consequently, I never used my tripod, except on rare occasion when I had to pack a separate bag for the humongously big bracket. Of course, I’m exaggerating, but not by an immense margin!

To sum up the problems : the legs were ok, the head worked smoothly, but the RC2 system was a PITA (and I am being quite gentle here).

I refuse, to this day, to count how much I had spent (plus the D200 and a very nice 80-400VR) in the tripod system, but I was back to square one, with the bonus of good legs and a good head.

I decided to trust my fellow Nikonians, and I did some research. And finally, I ordered a little set from Really Right Stuff:

• a B2 Pro2 clamp;
• a L-bracket for my D200 with grip, notwithstanding the caveats about the flexibility of that combo;
• lens plates for my 80-200/2.8 and 80-400VR.

The package arrived quickly, and I found myself with a very nice little set. And there is no miracle: since I have had it, I have been using my tripod a lot more than I did before…

Here  is a link to a Nikonians forum thread where I demonstrated the look of the beast once assembled:

I then assembled another smaller combination, with Gitzo GT1540T traveller legs, and a Foba MiniSuperBall head, for those moments when it is better/easier to carry a smaller tripod – and when I don’t have my usual big array of lenses, but a “do-it-all” like the 18-200. On this, I did not err, and I made sure the Foba had an A-S compatible clamp, which it does. Normal for a Swiss brand, I guess! I also bought a generic camera plate from them, which I used on the D200 when I didn't want to have the vertical grip, and which now sits under my F100. But I had to almost litterally twist arms in my local shops before they found a way to order from Foba for me.

Here is another post at Nikonians with images and commentaries about the smaller combo.

The morality, as many a Nikonian must have found out, is that there is a reason why the A-S system is praised: it works. It may be a bit elitist or snobbish to say so, but it simply really does, and I should have listened. But I am still wondering why it is so hard to find equipment that good in shops in this country!

Have a great time!

As promised in the title, this is a piece of ranting, the first one here and probably not the last at all! And this will be about tripods, or about an aspect of them.

When I joined Nikonians, I was by heritage the proud owner of an aluminium Manfrotto 190 with a Manfrotto ballhead using the big hexagonal RC0 plates. It was cumbersome, but it looked darned good to me. Until the day I found myself at the right place and the right light for a photo of a castle nearby: I opened the tripod bag, got the legs out of it, placed them right, and didn't find a single plate in the same bag or in the one for the camera and lenses. I ended up taking handheld photos that all had that Hamiltonian softness - except it was motion blur, my motion! Sorry, can't find one example, I have trashed them all since then!

Being at the time a "young Nikonian" full of enthusiasm, I also began to be interested in panoramic photography. Visiting my local shop, I fell in love with a much newer-looking Manfrotto 190DB on top of which was a very technical-looking three-way head using the much smaller and hand-friendly RC2 plates. I sold the old gear and bought this new one, only to notice how impossible it was to adjust the head to horizontal. When I made a row of photos for a pano, all the images were horizontal all right, but they never coincided since the head was not level... I got frustrated. A lot.

At about the same time, I started browsing the forum tripod at Nikonians...

Three things appeared important:

1. I started to understand that for general photography and even panos, the best starting point would be a ball head. Preferably a Markins, judging by the contents of the forum.
2. For pano work, the ability to use the camera in portrait orientation gave a wider image, making a L-bracket important.
3. Finally, the graal seemed to be the Arca-Swiss compatible system of camera plates and quick-release mounts.

I started thinking of a serious upgrade. This will be the object of the rest of this post, at a later moment today!

Thanks to the staff at Nikonians, and to my highly reknown capability to use things that I am never too sure I really need, I am now the owner of a blog. Of course, some questions will surely spring to mind, the foremost being "what the heck am I going to write about?"

The answer, surely, given that this is a Nikonians blog, will be photography in general. Expect praise for others (and maybe sometimes for myself, let's be honest!), rants about miscellana in the photo or cyber-worlds, in other words everything you will find on usual blogs with a little bias towards photography in general and the Nikon system in particular.

Well, that is the end of my first entry... happy everything to you, rare reader!

Olivier